


Oh, But Punks Like Us

by yet_intrepid



Series: punks like us [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fake Marriage, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Interrogation, Prison, Rescue, Sad Luke, Sad Wedge, Torture, Trans Luke Skywalker, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 07:31:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11375502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: “What'd they say?” Luke, now dressed, is crowding into the fresher with him. “Wedge, what's going on?”“We’re about to be arrested,” Wedge relays, calmly as he can. “They'll extract us tomorrow night.”Luke's eyes go wide, and then he goes very still. Wedge drops the comlink to the floor, grinds it under his heel, and flushes it down the commode.





	Oh, But Punks Like Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vinrebelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinrebelle/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Martin, you fuckin nerd. 
> 
>  
> 
> (Syal is a Legends character who I've repurposed into Wedge's canon backstory here.)

This mission is supposed to be easy.

Well, not easy-easy, nothing for the Rebellion ever is. He’s spent the last two weeks pretending to be married to Luke Skywalker, who he barely knows, and that’s been an adventure. But still, this isn’t supposed to be another Death Star run or anything, and that's why Wedge feels a rush of panic when the cops show up.

“Luke!” he calls, swinging away from the window to dig in his gear for the Alliance comlink hidden there. He throws things everywhere—underwear, jackets, spare ration bars. “Luke!”

Luke opens the fresher door. He’s in the shorts and t-shirt he wears to bed, still dripping from his thirty-second shower that he apparently didn’t spend much time toweling off from either. 

“What's up?” Luke asks, pushing his long wet bangs out of his face. Wedge throws a shoe, almost hitting him in the face. “Whoa, man! Something wrong?”

“Cops,” Wedge snaps. “Imp cops. Get dressed, hurry.”

There! His fingers finally land on the comlink and he snatches it up, hitting the button for a secure call to base. “Snapper One, this is Snapper Seven. Do you copy?”

Behind him, Luke is flailing into his shoes and a jacket. Wedge circles past him into the fresher; the cops can't be far from their door by now.

“Snapper Seven, this is Snapper One.”

Wedge heaves in air in relief. “Snapper One, requesting extraction. Repeat, Snapper Six and Seven need an extraction.”

A pause. “All our ships are out. Should be able to get someone to you in twenty-four standard hours.”

“Copy that,” says Wedge. He can deal with twenty-four hours under arrest, he thinks. He doesn't know how Luke will take it, but they'll just have to make do. “Over and out.”

“What'd they say?” Luke, now dressed, is crowding into the fresher with him. “Wedge, what's going on?”

“We’re about to be arrested,” Wedge relays, calmly as he can. “They'll extract us tomorrow night.”

Luke's eyes go wide, and then he goes very still. Wedge drops the comlink to the floor, grinds it under his heel, and flushes it down the commode.

“Come on,” he says, nudging Luke’s shoulder. “Sit down, act normal, and let me do the talking.”

Luke's brow furrows as they head back into the main room of the flat. “Won't it look weird? An innocent civilian not freaking out about being arrested?”

Wedge hesitates. It's not that he doesn't trust Luke, he tells himself—anyone who can blow up the Death Star deserves his respect, and Luke has been a competent mission partner these last few weeks. But Luke is….he likes to talk, and Wedge isn't sure how well he'll be able to resist the pressure.

Before he can open his mouth to reply, the knock comes.

Luke moves to open it. Wedge cuts in front of him, bumping him back towards the bed.

“Police, open up!”

Wedge unlocks the door and pulls it wide, letting shock show on his face. “Officer,” he says, “how can I help you?”

“Mister Wedge Reklawyk?” says the one at the front. His nametag reads Sergeant Moys. “You're under arrest.”

“Arrest,” Wedge repeats slowly. “But officer—”

“No!” It's Luke, moving towards the door. He clings to Wedge’s arm; Wedge almost pulls away from the contact before remembering their cover.

“Please,” Luke pleads, “he hasn't done anything! You can't just—”

Wedge reaches for Luke’s hand, squeezes. “Shhh,” he mutters. “I'm sure it'll all get sorted out.”

“They can't take you away!” Luke protests, pulling out of Wedge’s grip, but Sergeant Moys interrupts.

“Mister Luke Reklawyk?”

“Yes,” says Luke, slowly.

“You’re under arrest as well.”

“What for?” Luke demands. But the cops behind Sergeant Moys are already moving in, locking Wedge’s hands into binders. Wedge swallows hard. He’s only been captured by Imps once before, and he was with a whole group—friends, a superior officer, people who’d gone through it before. Now he’s the experienced one,  and he’s panicking inside worse than Luke is outside. The Empire can do what it wants; Wedge has seen that firsthand. In twenty-four hours they could be off-world in some maximum security facility.

They could be dead.

Enough of that, Antilles, Wedge tells himself. One step at a time. Make it up as you go, that’s the Alliance way.

 “What for?” Luke is still saying, even though he’s cuffed now too. “We haven’t done anything!”

Sergeant Moys shrugs. “We’ll discuss it further at the station,” he says, and finally Luke stops protesting. He’s pale and jittery, but he’s keeping his mouth shut.

The cops march them into the turbolift of the apartment building and then out on the ground floor. It’s dark outside, streetlights pulsing yellow; the air is clear and cold. Luke shivers against Wedge as they’re loaded into the windowless back of a police hovertruck.

“Antilles, come in,” says Sergeant Moys, and Wedge startles before realizing the man is talking into his comlink. “Get the holding cell emptied. I don’t care who’s in there; get them out.”

Antilles.

The door to the back of the hovertruck slams shut, leaving Luke and Wedge in darkness.

“Wedge,” Luke hisses. “Did you hear, he said—do you think he knows?”

“No,” says Wedge. Every word feels heavy. “He was talking into his comlink.”

Wedge can barely see Luke’s brow crease, but he feels Luke shifting closer to him on the floor of the hovertruck. “But that means—Antilles isn’t that common of a name, right? At least I never heard it before I met you.”

“Well, there definitely aren’t many of us on Tatooine,” Wedge says. “But no, it’s…it’s probably Syal.”

“Syal?”

“My sister.” Wedge lets out a long sigh. “She’s an Imp cop. I didn’t know she was stationed here; we haven’t talked in three or four years.”

“Oh,” says Luke, and then, “But our IDs!”

The truck is cold, but Wedge knows that’s not what’s making goosebumps rise on the back of his neck. If Syal recognizes him— _when_ she recognizes him—she’ll be suspicious of his changed last name on the fake ID. She’s his sister, sure, but she’s also an _Imp cop_. And they haven’t been told why they’ve been arrested, so Wedge has to assume that they’re under suspicion of terrorism.

But “we’ll figure it out,” he says, because they always have so far. Because he’s learned how since joining up with the Alliance: how to fly without radar and land without gear, how to scrape past death day after day. And if one day he doesn’t, well, that won’t be a surprise. He’s no better a man than Biggs or Rake or Jek or anyone else who’s died for the cause.

“Okay,” says Luke. He flashes Wedge an earnest smile, and Wedge manages to smile back as the hovertruck powers on.

They’re quiet a while. Then, just as the truck comes to a stop, Luke gasps.

“What?” whispers Wedge, but the door is opening, and Luke slams his mouth shut as they’re hauled out by the cops and escorted into the station.

When the door opens, they’re hit with florescent light. But as soon as Wedge’s eyes adjust, he sees her. Syal is standing behind the desk; her long dark hair is pulled back in a neat bun, and her face is as much like looking into a mirror as it was last time they met.

“Antilles,” says Sergeant Moys, “get these two booked. Take every precaution.”

“Yes sir,” says Syal, and as he walks away, she turns to them.

Her eyebrows fly up; she blinks as if to clear away some delusion. Wedge steps forward as best he can with his elbow being held by one of the remaining cops.

“Hi Syal,” he says quietly.

“Wedge, what the hell?” Syal shakes her head in disbelief. “What did you _do_?”

“It's a misunderstanding.” Wedge offers her a sheepish smile. “I'm sure it’ll be cleared up.”

She squints at him, but nods, beckoning for the cops guarding him and Luke to come closer. “Let’s do this right,” she says, picking up her pad. “Name?”

Wedge takes a deep breath, because he’s got to match what’s on the ID. “Wedge Reklawyk.”

“Rekla—” Syal stops. “What?”

For a second everything is very awkward and very slow. Then Luke clears his throat. “Uh, so I guess Wedge never told you?”

“Never told me what?”

“We got married,” Luke says. He holds up his cuffed hands, showing the cheap wedding band that they’ve been wearing as part of the cover. “I’m Luke? Luke Reklawyk. Didn’t he ever mention—”

Wedge hides his relief by staring down at the floor in pretended embarrassment. If Luke hadn’t remembered that part of their cover—kriff.

“No, he didn’t mention it,” Syal is saying, “because he’s an ass!”

“I’m sorry,” Wedge says. “It was—I didn’t figure you’d want—”

She stares at him, then breaks off with a shake of her head to enter his birth date into the system without asking what it is. “Last I heard you were at Skystrike, making a name for yourself piloting TIEs.”

“I kinda flunked out,” Wedge says. “So I went back to cargo, met Luke there. We’ve been married two years. And then the company downsized, so we came here looking for work.”

“Can I see your ID?” Syal asks. She looks upset, and Imp or not, Wedge hates to see that. He fumbles in his front pocket for the card, but comes up with nothing.

“Uh,” he says, wiggling his hands in their binders. “I can’t reach my back pocket.”

“It’s fine, Antilles,” the cop holding Wedge says to Syal. “We’ll get it out when we search them. Moys said strip search, electronic scan, everything.”

“Thanks, Terems,” says Syal. “If you could do that now? I’ll get everything ready to fingerprint them when you’re done.”

Terems starts leading Wedge away from the desk, and Luke is guided similarly. They both end up in front of a metal detector, behind which two doors wait closed.

Terems uncuffs Wedge; the other cop trains a blaster on him.

“Jacket off,” says Terems. “Shoes too.”

Wedge obeys, then follows instructions in stepping through the metal detector. He catches a glimpse of an electronic body scan coming up on the nearby screen, too.

Behind him, there are footsteps. As he finishes walking through the detector and submits to the binders again, he turns back to look towards the desk. Syal is answering her desk com, which displays a holo of a uniformed officer.

Wedge peers at the holo as Luke steps under the metal detector. The uniform looks like a regional inspector, and Wedge squeezes his eyes shut for composure.

“Um,” Luke is saying, as his body scan comes up. “I should—probably tell you before we start this—”

Terems squints at him, then at the scan. “Antilles!” he calls back to the desk. “I need you for the search!”

“Can you hold for a moment?”  Syal asks the inspector. “Thank you. –Terems, I don't have time, there's a regional inspector on the line!”

“This one's a woman in disguise,” Terems interrupts.

“No,” gasps Luke, “no, I’m not! I’m trans, okay, you searching me is fine, I'm a man, my ID says so.”

Wedge's heart contracts at Luke's clear distress. Terems looks back at Syal, who’s returned to her call, and then shrugs.

“Come on, then,” he says, and beckons Luke through the detector to be cuffed again.

Then they're split up, led into separate rooms. Terems get the cuffs off yet again—why did he put them back on for a walk of five feet, Wedge wonders—and orders Wedge to strip off his clothes. Wedge stands there in his boxers while Terems goes over every pocket and every seam, then obediently shucks the boxers too and goes through the steps that Terems guides him to take: running his hands through his hair, showing that there's nothing behind his ears or in his nose and mouth, then lifting his arms to reveal that he's hiding nothing in his armpits, either.

"Lift your junk," says Terems, finally, and Wedge grimaces but obeys. He hopes Luke is all right, wonders if he really would’ve preferred to be searched by Syal if he hadn't had to assert that he really was a man.

Or maybe he wouldn’t have, given that Syal is his supposed sister-in-law. That would be awkward.

When asked, Wedge shows the soles of his bare feet to the cop, then hurries back into his clothes. He tries not to think about the awkwardness of it all. They didn't touch him, and he's glad of that. Hopefully Luke is fine too.

Finally, he’s led back to Syal to be fingerprinted and have his ID scanned, then shuffled off into holding with cuffs back on. Luke isn’t out of his search yet and Wedge stands at the bars to look for him. He hadn't realized that was why Luke never slept without a shirt on, and presumably some kind of chest binder underneath.

Really observant there, Antilles, he thinks, as the door finally opens and Luke comes out, staring at his feet. He doesn’t say anything when Syal greets him, just bites his lip and does what’s asked of him. Then Wedge is ordered to stand back from the door and Luke is pushed into the holding cell with him.

“Are—are you okay?” Wedge asks. He's not really sure how he'll deal if Luke isn't okay; Luke seems to be much better with emotions than Wedge is himself.

Luke shrugs, moving to sit on the cot in the corner of the cell. Wedge follows him, asking permission with a glance before settling next to him.

“Get the questions out of the way,” Luke mumbles, quietly enough that the guards hopefully can’t hear.

Wedge shakes his head. “Jek—he was trans, too,” he says, hoping it’ll be reassuring that Wedge at least knows enough not to say anything ignorant. But Luke grimaces, and so does Wedge, thinking about the Death Star. Thinking about everyone they’ve outlived, all the friends they've lost.

“I never got to talk to him,” Luke says. “Wedge, I never—”

“I know,” Wedge murmurs, and he wonders for the first time how it must feel to be Luke Skywalker. To have blown up the Death Star, with all its janitors and cadets and officials and prisoners. To carry the weight of so many deaths in such a gentle heart.

Being Luke Skywalker, he thinks, must mean having the strangest kind of strength.

Luke scoots closer, shivering against Wedge again. Their shoulders are pressed together, and Wedge finds that he doesn’t mind. Even if it weren’t for their cover, he thinks, he might like this—this open closeness, this warmth at his side.

It’s not the first time he’s thought that, over the last few weeks. But it is the first time that he pats his shoulder, beckoning Luke to lay his head there. And Luke does, his floppy hair tickling Wedge’s chin, his breath deepening as Wedge tilts his head back against the bars and tries not to think about the fact  that when backup comes, they might shoot his sister.

He doesn’t know how he falls asleep, but he must, because he wakes up. His hands are asleep, though, tingly from being locked in binders for so long. Luke’s face is still nuzzled into his shoulder, and someone is yelling at them.

Wedge shakes Luke, who startles to his feet just before one of the cops can haul him up. Wedge gets grabbed, too, and they’re both escorted down the hall and through a door. The room beyond is sparely furnished—just a table, with two chairs on one side and one on the other—and its tiled floor gleams under florescent lights.

“Wedge and Luke Reklawyk,” says the man across the table from them, the regional inspector from the holo. He’s flanked by Sergeant Moys and three regional sheriffs. “Sit down.”

Wedge and Luke obey. Their guards magnetize their binders to attach to the table, then salute and leave when the inspector dismisses them. Wedge breathes a little easier when the room’s less crowded. The sheriffs around the inspector are all bulky-built and armed, and the space isn’t all that big, after all.

Luke, in the corner of Wedge’s vision, is jittery, bouncing his leg. Wedge wants to move too, but he breathes in deep and settles for flexing his still-tingly fingers.

Twenty-four hours, he reminds himself. Or less, counting out the time they were asleep. They can do this, he thinks, but the voice in his head comes out more sarcastic than hopeful. They can _totally_ do this.

“We have a few routine questions for you,” the inspector says calmly, as though he’s not surrounded by goons with blasters and batons. “When did you come to Randon?”

Luke looks to Wedge for guidance. Wedge lifts his chin.

“Cool, I have some questions too,” he says. “When can I see a lawyer?”

The inspector lifts his eyebrows. “You’ll be assigned a defender before your case comes to court. For now, we need some basic information. When did you come to Randon?”

“When did you?” Wedge retorts. “I gotta say, getting basic info from a couple of cargo pilots seems like a small assignment for a big-time officer like yourself.”

“Your file indicates it’s been about three weeks,” the inspector says, gesturing towards some folders on the table. His face is still pleasant but his voice is darker, more threatening. “Is that correct?”

“What, you think your researchers aren’t doing their jobs or something?” Wedge shifts a little in his chair, trying to maneuver so he can support his arms on his raised knees. It’s really irritating having them stretched out like this, bending him forward just enough that he knows he’ll be sore later.  

The inspector looks over at one of the sheriffs on his right. “Sychara, if you would.”

“Yes sir,” says Sychara, and Wedge’s stomach does uneasy flips. Sychara gets close to Wedge, raises a hand; Wedge breathes in deep, holds it, lets it out as slow as he can when the slap stings bright across his cheek.

“Wedge!” Luke gasps, and then he tumbles back into the babbling he’d been doing when they were first arrested. Is it a persona? Wedge can’t tell. Maybe it’s real; maybe Luke is a really good actor. Either way, Wedge wants him to shut up. The kid doesn’t need to attract attention.

“Please, inspector, come on, we just want to go home, we have work in the morning.” Luke’s scared face is pretty convincing. “If you have the files, that should be enough, right? We haven’t done anything and we just, come on, we don’t want any trouble.”

“If you don’t want trouble,” says the inspector, “cooperate.” He nods to Sychara again.

The slap’s harder this time, knuckles across Wedge’s mouth. Something splits.

“Stop hurting him!” Luke yells. “Stop!”

“Confirm your information,” the inspector repeats, “and we’ll be able to move forward without, as you say, any trouble.”

Luke looks over to Wedge. Heaving in air again, Wedge licks away the blood from his lip and spits it out. Then he offers Luke a smile that he hopes is reassuring.

“We’ll cooperate,” he says to the inspector, “as soon as you’ve let us consult a lawyer.”

Sychara leans in and goes at the other side of his face this time, hitting closer to the cheekbone. Wedge’s head swings away; the movement echoes through his shoulders and tugs at his bound hands. He grunts with the pain, screwing up his face and his courage.

He can do this.

The inspector slams his fist into the table and stands up. “What do you know about the Rebel Alliance?” he demands.

Wedge jumps at the noise, at the sudden shift. Luke, beside him, is shaking.

“Rebels?” Luke squeaks, and his blue eyes are big with fear. “Nothing! Sir, we’re cargo pilots, we’re just working in the warehouses until someone gets back to us on our applications to fly…”

“You’re terrorists!” shouts the inspector. “You’re plotting to bomb government buildings!”

“We aren’t,” Wedge starts, and then his hands come free from the table just as Sychara hits him again. He topples backwards, his chair falling against the wall, and then Sychara and one of the others haul him out of the chair and push him to his knees on the floor.

“Hey,” Luke yells, “what are you doing? Stop hurting him, stop!”

Wedge struggles just a little, just enough that he can turn and meet Luke’s eyes. “Luke,” he gasps out, “calm down, okay?”

The cops push him towards the corner of the room, and then Sychara has something in his hands, some kind of gag, and he’s fastening it into Wedge’s mouth. Then his shirt gets pulled up, over his head to dangle from his arms. Behind him, something buzzes.

“No,” Luke keeps saying, “no, please, we don’t know anything—”

It tears at Wedge more than the ache of his face, more than the fear of what’s going to happen. Blast it, Luke, he thinks, because he _cares_. He can’t help it. He hates seeing Luke upset, and it makes him want to cave, take all the blame, try to get himself scapegoated. But the Empire can do what it wants, and Wedge knows they wouldn’t hesitate to keep an innocent civilian prisoner as leverage over a captive rebel.

Over his shoulder, he sees Luke pulling at his restraints, and then he sees something else, something moving towards him.

When it hits his skin with a searing hiss, it’s like it hurts from the inside out, echoing up and down his body and radiating out from his core. Wedge falls against the wall, grits his teeth into the gag.

Luke keeps yelling. For a moment Wedge is grateful for that. At least it covers over his own groans.

They trigger the electroprod again, and Wedge tries his best to hold out but this time it hurts worse, so much worse, and he can hear himself screaming between gasps for breath. 

So much for being strong for Luke. He hopes that at least Syal can’t hear him, that the station walls and the gag are thick enough together to muffle the noise.

“We didn’t do anything,” Luke is begging. “Please, please stop. We’re loyal, we’d never join the terrorists—”

 Wedge drags in air through the gag, straightens up just in time to be shocked again. Everything blurs into a mass of pain and airlessness and scrambled thoughts as they go at him, over and over. His body is a flame and his mind is the candle, melting.

“What are the rebels planning?” demands the inspector. “Where are they hiding their weapons?”

Wedge sobs through the gag, shakes his head.

“He doesn’t know,” Luke echoes, “stop, we don’t know anything!”

 “Sir,” Sychara says, “all due respect but you’ve ordered the gag on the wrong one, here.”

“A fair point,” says the inspector. “Switch it.”

Sychara grabs Wedge by the shoulders and unfastens the gag. Wedge sucks at the air, trying to keep his breaths from coming out sobs. He’s already got tear streaks down his face, but dignity isn’t exactly the highest priority here.

He looks over his shoulder again, catching a glimpse of Luke’s wild hair as he thrashes against the guard who’s trying to gag him in turn.

“Luke,” he calls, “don’t fight, okay? We’ll get this figured out.”

Their eyes meet for a second before something slams into Wedge’s right arm and knocks him into a curled-up ball on the floor. He peers up to see what hit him and then immediately pulls his cuffed hands up to cover his face as the baton comes down again. Kriff, it hurts, and he bites down on his tongue but the whimpers still get past it.

“Where are the rebels’ weapons?” the inspector shouts. He grabs Wedge by the ear and drags him up, leaning in to yell in his face. “Where are the weapons?”

“Where’s your sense of decency?” Wedge spits. “Because I’m pretty sure beating civilians for fun means you’ve misplaced it somewhere.”

The inspector hits him in the gut and Wedge crumples down again. His face hits the tile; there’s no time to recover before he realizes he’s right up next to a boot that slams into his thigh. They’re still yelling, they’re crowding over him and everything is dizzying pain.

Luke, in the background, is trying to talk around the gag. Wedge almost laughs at that, remembering Biggs talking about his friend back home with a mouth bigger than meteors, and then he remembers that Biggs is dead.

And he remembers that if they give, they could die too.

He curls tighter in on himself and does his best to shut out the yelling, to forget that there are any questions. To forget there are ways he could make this end.

The boots are battering away at his arms, which he’s still got up protecting his face; every blow jars his wrists against the binders. Wedge feels like one giant bruise already. How long have they been here? How much longer do they have to wait this out? But there’s no clock in the room, no way to know, and Wedge breathes and aches, breathes and aches.

Then it stops.

Wedge breathes. Aches. Peers up through his fingers, cautiously, because he doesn’t want to risk a kick to his unguarded face. But one doesn’t come, and suddenly he’s being dragged to his feet again. He stumbles ungracefully as they push him out of the room, Luke still locked to the table.

“Luke!” Wedge scrambles to grab onto the doorframe. The cops pry at his fingers as he clings, and Wedge fights them. He knows he shouldn’t, but Luke is being left alone with the inspector and the sergeant, and Wedge is afraid.

But Luke isn’t yelling anymore, isn’t struggling. He’s gone very still, and when he turns to meet Wedge’s eyes there’s hope there—bright, irresistible.

“I’m fine,” Luke promises. And somehow, Wedge believes him.

One of the cops throws a bag over Wedge’s head. That’s new, he thinks, trying to push away the claustrophobia that threatens immediately. He can’t see through the dark cloth, not enough to tell where he’s going anyway. All he can see are faint patches of light.

“Antilles!” yells one of his guards, and Wedge jerks towards the sound before remembering that they’re calling for Syal.

“What?” she calls back. Wedge can hear her footsteps coming nearer.

“Sergeant wants to talk to you. He’ll be out in a second.”

“Okay,” says Syal. It’s strange, Wedge thinks, but after all these years he can pinpoint the anxiety in her voice—that inflection at the end of words, like a question, and the slowness of the vowels. There is something growing inside him, something like affection: for her, for Luke. It’s swelling like it’ll break his ribs from the inside; it aches worse than any bruise or blow he’s had.

He wants everyone to be safe, safe and good and free.

But to have that, they can’t have the Empire, he reminds himself, and he tucks the feeling away inside himself like a secret weapon as the guards lead him through a door and half-lift, half-lead him onto a box.

“Crouch down,” says one of the guards, and Wedge does. With a blaster at his temple, they undo the binders and pull his hands behind his back to fasten them again. It pulls at his shoulder, at the bruises on his forearms, and Wedge breathes through gritted teeth. He’s heard of people being left like this for hours, and it already hurts after a few seconds.

One of the guards shoves at him. Wedge sways, but doesn’t fall, and then everything is silent and still.

He doesn’t know how long it is before his legs start cramping. He doesn’t know how long it’s been when the tears come, or when they go, or when he starts reciting song lyrics to himself just for something else to think about. And he doesn’t know how long it is before, from somewhere else in the station, Luke starts screaming.

Wedge wants to throw up. With an effort, he doesn’t, because throwing up while your head’s in a bag sounds like an awful way to die. But Luke’s pain just grates at him, persistent and overpowering, and Wedge is helpless to do anything. He can hear the guards shifting at the other end of the room he’s in, and he wishes he could charge them, take them out. But his hands are behind him, he can’t see, and he’s pretty sure his legs won’t hold him much longer.

He tries straightening them, moving towards a proper standing position. But immediately, the guards close in to manhandle him back into a crouch, and Wedge cries out at their grip on his sore body. They don’t say anything, though—just hold him there until he stops struggling.

Just as they let go, he hears a door open.

“The sergeant sent me,” says Syal, from the other side of the room. “He wants me to talk to the prisoner alone.”

Wedge swallows hard as the other guards file out. The door closes and then Syal is close to him, pulling the bag off his head.

“Wedge,” she says, and Wedge could almost cry just at being spoken to gently, at the touch of hands that do not hurt. He looks up at her, standing in front of his box, and wishes he could trust her.

“Syal,” he says, his voice quiet. “It’s—I don’t—please.”

“Please what?” says Syal.

Wedge squeezes his eyes shut. “Let me sit down. Just for a second.”

She hesitates. “Okay,” she says, and he shifts carefully to dangle his legs off the box. They cramp so badly he can barely unbend his knees to move.

He doesn’t look at Syal. He knows why she’s here, knows the good-cop-bad-cop drill. But there’s some part of her that seems to really care, some part of her that must believe he’s not a rebel.

She’s his sister. Estranged, yeah, it’s pretty plausible that if Wedge got married he wouldn’t bother sending her a message. But she babysat him when he was a kid, gave him that model plane he cherished all the way until he went to Skystrike. They ought to be bickering over the last dessert, not staring at each other from opposite sides of a war.

“Wedge,” she says again. “If you’d just cooperate—”

“I can’t cooperate, Syal,” he tells her. “I don’t know anything.”

Tears leak out again. Wedge curses them under his breath as she reaches out, puts a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“The sergeant has proof that your…your husband, this Luke, that he’s associated with the Rebellion.” Syal’s fingers massage lightly at his bruises; Wedge leans into the touch. It’s soft, and he’s exhausted. All he wants is sleep.

“Give him up, Wedge,” Syal says. “Please. Inform, cooperate. Luke’s facial scans match those of a known rebel, and unless you work with us, you’re guilty by association.”

“No,” Wedge says, staring at her. “No, he can’t be, Syal. He’s—he’s my husband.”

The thing is, Wedge is pretty sure it’s actually a lie. If his own face matched scans in the database, that’d be one thing, but Luke has only been with the Alliance for a matter of weeks, most of which were spent either here or on Yavin IV. There’s no way he’s already been marked.

Syal bites her lip; Wedge looks away from her.

“Please,” he says. “Don’t let them do this to me. To _us_ : you, me, Luke.”

“Luke has been lying to you.” Syal shakes her head. “You can’t trust him, Wedge.”

“Can’t trust him?” Wedge is angry now, really angry, and he doesn’t know why. Maybe because Luke blew up the Death Star, saved them all. Maybe because Biggs trusted Luke, and Wedge would’ve given his life for Biggs over and over. Or maybe it’s just the way Luke had yelled his name when the interrogation was going, all that raw concern in his voice.

“Syal,” he says, “you’re my sister and I care about you. But you don’t know Luke like I do. He isn’t the bad guy here.”

He finally meets her eyes again, finds tears gathering there to match his.

“Wedge,” she says. “He’s a terrorist. He’s going to be executed. And if you stand by him, you will be too.”

For a wild moment it takes him in, and he wonders if he was wrong to run away to the Rebellion after all. But no, he reminds himself firmly, he’s seen the Empire do things, inexcusable things, and his sister’s pleading gaze can’t erase that.

“He can’t be,” Wedge says. “There’s no way.”

Her hand finally drops from his shoulder. “Okay,” she says, and turns her back.

“Syal,” Wedge says, and he doesn’t know why, because there’s nothing left to say. She ignores him anyway, opening the door to let the guards back inside. Reluctantly, Wedge forces his cramping legs to cooperate and climbs back onto the box, because doing it himself is better than getting hit and ordered and forced. But as he’s crouching down, the guards come grab him anyway and pull him back off the box, marching him out the door.

Kriff, thinks Wedge, what now?

But they lead him back to the room the interrogation started in, and Wedge feels a surge of hope and worry all at once, because Luke might still be there. And when they open the door—kriff, Wedge thinks again, squeezing his eyes closed for a second against the sight.

But when he opens them again, Luke is smiling at him. He’s lying curled on the floor and he’s got two black eyes, a cut of some kind at his hairline; he looks generally beat to hell. But he’s smiling, broad and bright, and Wedge smiles back.

“You okay?” Luke asks. His voice is hoarse from screaming.

“Yeah,” says Wedge. Because he is, now that they’re back in the same room, now that that smile is spreading gentle warmth through his pain-laced body.

The guards force him into one of the empty chairs. Wedge shifts to avoid leaning back against his bound arms and looks Luke over properly. It’s not just the injuries to his face—his arms and hands are speckled with burns from the electroprod, and his bare shins are deeply bruised. Wedge wonders what other hurts are hidden under Luke’s pajamas and then decides it’s better, at least for now, that he doesn’t know.

Also, kriff, his legs hurt.

“Wedge Antilles,” says the inspector. Wedge, suddenly terrified, swings to look at him.

“That is your birth name, is it not?” The inspector leans back in his chair, his legs casually crossed. “Since you are the brother of Syal Antilles.”

“I want a lawyer,” says Wedge, because he doesn’t know what else to say. His heart flutters fast inside him.

“Wedge Antilles of Corellia.” The inspector reaches for a file on the table, reads from it. “Formerly a cadet at Skystrike with a not-insignificant aptitude for TIE piloting. Then deserted from Skystrike, allegedly with the assistance of rebel forces.”

He throws down the file, suddenly leaning in. “Enough playing innocent, Antilles,” he snarls. “Why are you on Randon? Where are the weapons?”

Wedge closes his eyes. That’s it, they’re done for, he thinks—they’ll be shipped off-world before backup can come. How long have they been here, how much longer does he have to stall?

Luke cries out and Wedge’s eyes flip open again to see him reeling from a kick to the gut. “No,” he cries, “he doesn’t know anything; it’s just me who used to be with the Rebels, it’s only me.”

“Used to,” the inspector repeats, dubious.

“I left when I met Luke.” Wedge hopes the lie will fly, hopes as badly as he’s ever hoped the same for a broken-down ship. “He, I couldn’t bring him into that with me. And after we got married, I—I came to see how wrong I was to do it in the first place.”

The inspector pounds his fists on the table. “Then you should’ve informed on the terrorists! Should’ve come forward with information!”

The cop standing over Luke kicks him again; Luke curls up tighter.

“I know,” says Wedge, hanging his head. “I…I know.”

“Why are you on Randon?” repeats the inspector. The cop keeps going at Luke, hauling him up to hit him in the face and then dropping him to the floor again.

“Cargo,” Wedge answers, desperately. “I’ve been flying cargo since I met Luke. Please, we lost our jobs and we’re just working in the warehouses here until we can find someone to fly for again.”

“Why are you on Randon?” the inspector says, as if Wedge hadn’t answered. “Tell me the truth!”

“Cargo,” Wedge says. He looks down, then over at Luke. Luke looks so small, so blasted young as he shakes against the cold tile.

“Now,” says the inspector, “you wouldn’t want to jeopardize your sister’s career, would you? The sister of an unrepentant ex-rebel, working in an Imperial station…that’s hardly a safe position.”

Wedge grits his teeth. “We’re cargo pilots, inspector.”

“You’re terrorists!” The inspector stands up, slamming his fists on the table again. “Kriffing terrorists!”

The cop standing over Luke starts to pull him up again and, because there’s no way anything he does will make this better anymore, Wedge darts from his chair, yelling incoherent protests.

He squeezes himself between Luke and the cop before the punch can land, catches it on his own jaw. The world rings; he and Luke tumble together to the floor in a tangle of pain.

“Don’t touch him,” he hears himself screaming. “Don’t hurt my husband!”

More cops are closing in, their batons out, and Wedge scrambles away from them, pushing Luke between him and the wall to keep him safe. Then the blows are raining down and they’re loud as blaster fire and everything, everything hurts and—

Maybe that’s actual blaster fire.

The door bursts open and lasers fly. Luke dives over Wedge, sheltering him in turn; the room erupts into noise and then silences. There’s people standing over them, familiar faces, and Wedge groans as they lift him up and uncuff his hands.

“Luke,” he mutters. “Get Luke.”

“We’ve got him,” says the voice of the person that’s cradling Wedge in their arms. “Come on, everyone, let’s go!”

They’re running through the station. Everything is blurry, dim. But as they break out into the lobby, Wedge thinks he sees Syal hiding behind the desk, and he thinks she sees him too.

He thinks that she is, perhaps, sorry.

 

\----

 

Wedge wakes up to the beeping and low chatter of medbay. There’s a warm presence beside him and, not opening his eyes yet, he curls towards it. 

When he does, his body complains. The fuzzy softness of sleep begins to recede as he remembers what’s happened; it’s replaced by a deep, aching relief.

“Wedge!”

“Luke?” Wedge opens his eyes. Luke is beside him on the tiny medbay cot, propped up on his elbow and squeezed against the wall. He’s still got dark bruises all over his face, and he’s still smiling in a way that makes Wedge think that Tatooine must’ve lost a sun when Luke flew off-world.

Okay, Antilles, that’s enough, he thinks, laughing at himself. But blast it, they’re safe and together still, and maybe he can allow himself a little sentimentality.

“…feeling okay?” Luke is saying, and Wedge smiles back at him.

“A little sore,” he admits. “A little like I got captured and knocked around by some Imps.”

“Me too,” says Luke. “You know, maybe we did.”

“Maybe we did,” agrees Wedge. “And we also maybe got rescued earlier than planned.”

“Yeah.” Luke shifts a little. His position looks uncomfortable, and Wedge sits up to give him more space. Luke sits up beside him, steadying Wedge with a burn-marked hand.

They look at each other. They take matching breaths.

“Your sister,” Luke starts, finally.

Wedge looks away. “Do you know,” he asks, “is she—is she dead?”

“I asked the rescue crew,” Luke says. “They said they didn’t think so.”

“I thought I saw her.” The words come out painful, and not just because of his bruised ribs. “Behind the desk, as we were leaving.”

“She didn’t call for reinforcements,” Luke says. “Nobody came after us on the way out.”

Wedge sits with that for a minute. Luke’s hand is still on his shoulder, and he thinks—not for the first time, nor probably for the last—that he wouldn’t mind if they stayed close for a while, if they took another mission together. If they had to pretend to be married again.

He slips his own fingers up to rest over Luke’s, and then they’re clasping hands as if for their lives.

“Wedge,” says Luke, slowly, “when we made it off the Death Star run, I thought I’d never want to look at you again. I just kept looking at you and seeing Biggs, you know, and everyone else, and I was angry, and I…I don’t know. I’m not angry now. I hope we work together some more.”

“I hope so too,” says Wedge. “You’re a brave man, Luke Skywalker.”

“So are you,” says Luke, and he leans his head into Wedge’s shoulder. Wedge rests his head against Luke’s soft hair and feels courage seep into him again. It doesn’t banish the residual terror of their capture, but that’s okay. This desire to hide and shout and smile and punch things and hold someone, all at once—this is, Wedge thinks, a part of the way Luke lives, a part of that strangest strength.


End file.
